


An Amalgamation of Contradictions

by MellytheHun



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Awkward Teenaged Grinding, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Grinding, Horny Teenagers, Humor, Kisses, Love Confessions, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Sexual Tension, Teen Angst, Teenage Drama, Teenagers, Tumblr Prompt, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:35:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Prompt: teen!reddie, Eddie drunkenly confessingRichie Tozier is an amalgamation of contradictions, Eddie thinks to himself, winding the beer bottle neck between his fingers as he stares at the stupid R + E carved into the Kissing Bridge.





	An Amalgamation of Contradictions

**Author's Note:**

> I've fallen into reddie Hell! If you wanna come talk to me about it or send prompts or something, I'm loserchildhotpants on Tumblr, and MellytheHun on Twitter.

_Richie Tozier is an amalgamation of contradictions_, Eddie thinks to himself, winding the beer bottle neck between his fingers as he stares at the stupid R + E carved into the Kissing Bridge.

He always has been - an amalgamation of contradictions, that is.

And Eddie has always loved that about Richie.

His life has always been like that, he guesses - and he does love his life, too.

He has a warm bed to fall into at night, a caring (if small, and overbearing) family, he’s got money enough to play at the arcade, go to the movies on the weekends, eat like shit, and eat well if his body is aching for real nutrition too - most importantly, though, is that Eddie’s got the Losers.

He’s got friends that redefine loyalty, friends that are family, friends that love him, and love each other, and they laugh together, and swim together, study together, play together, work together, bike together, shout nonsensical abuse at each other, and against all odds, they’re all alive, and well.

Eddie knows he’s got a lot to be thankful for, and he’s never been short on gratitude, really.

Gratitude, though, even when it comes easily enough, does not quell the ache of wanting, and there is no ache quite like the one that accompanies wanting something, or someone that one cannot have.

More importantly, though, is that Eddie Kaspbrak will never forgive the universe for conspiring against him this way, that at seventeen, he’s drunk, and sad, and the thing he wants most in the entire fucking world is to kiss Richie Tozier within an inch of his fucking life.

See, that seems unfair, to Eddie. It’s a joke - a bad one - like the ones that Richie laughs at the hardest. It’s a joke that sounds like ‘hey, wouldn’t it be funny if your body and soul became consumed from the inside out by a deathless, cosmic desire to fuck, cherish, adore, and kiss Richard I-have-literally-never-shut-up-fucking-once-in-my-entire-life Tozier?’ To which Eddie’s response is, ‘no, it would not be funny,’ and just like Richie, the universe smiles widely, and carries on without his permission.

The universe saw Eddie’s hand when Eddie did - Eddie said to the universe, ‘okay, I see the hand I’m dealt, and this is what I’ll do with it - I’ll become braver, smarter, and sociable enough to have a fucking amazing support system, full of people I love, and I’ll be sad sometimes, content most of the time, and very happy a lot of the time.’

The universe, in turn, said, ‘interesting. I will raise you a bisexual crisis at age thirteen, and a romantic crisis at age fourteen, the subject of which will be a singlar - though powerful - weedy, floppy-haired boy you’ve literally nicknamed ‘Trashmouth.’ Have fun!’

Eddie likes to have plans in place - it makes his anxiety easier to deal with, on a day-to-day basis, and _that_ had thrown his original plans for a fucking loop.

If he were to cite his work from the beginning, his earliest, initial plan, at the start, had been to grow into a normal and well-adjusted, well-liked kid, but that didn’t pan out for him. Not for a lack of trying, but Eddie has never been well-adjusted, any degree of normal, and as he understands it, he is more often disliked among his peers than not. So, his initial plan had been doomed to fail before it began.

In kindergarten, when Richie got hold of him, Richie diverted the plan entirely, and, unlike Eddie, appeared to operate solely on whatever chaotic impulse was more appealing at any given time than the voice of reason he may or may not have in his head. Most people have that voice in their head, but arguments could be made that the evidence of one existing in Richie’s head is slim to none. He may have left it on mute, some fateful day, and just forgotten about it, honestly.

Richie goes through life with no plans - he just operates wildly - it’s enough to give Eddie another condition.

He once watched Richie brush his teeth at a sleepover with a _**borrowed **toothbrush_, and not ten minutes later, _chug orange juice_. Eddie had screamed.

It’s terrifying just to _watch_ someone live without any plans in place.

New plan, then - Eddie figured out early on that he was stuck with Richie, whether he liked it or not, and he acted like he hated that outcome way more than he actually did, but Richie never seemed to mind Eddie’s whines of despair.

After all, Richie was uncouth, usually filthy, loud, annoying, brash, but he was funny, and adventurous, and he could have chosen a lot of different people to be his friends - he had chosen Stanely that young, too, after all. He attached himself to Eddie, though, more than Stan. He hung onto Eddie’s arms, insisted on sharing crayons, would even pile his own stuff in with Eddie’s, in Eddie’s cubbie.

It became clear, very early in life, that Richie had chosen Eddie for companionship, and that Eddie had very little say in the matter.

Anyway, he ultimately decided, ‘fine - I’ll be Richie Tozier’s friend - maybe even his best friend - and because we’ve known each other practically our whole lives, we’ll grow to feel like brothers someday, and things will be fine.’

Then, when he was thirteen, his long-standing crush on Lindsey Becker dwindled away to nothing, all in the blink of an eye, and all because he looked to Bill’s living room floor while all the Losers were over, and Richie was there, stretching like a cat.

Richie had pushed his arms up high over his head, arched his back, scrunched his eyes shut, stretched out his long, winding legs, and his midriff had shown between his too-small He-Man shirt, and his low-rise, tight, dark-wash jeans, and all the blood in Eddie’s fucking body had rushed to his cock like it was late for class.

The universe had thrown him a curveball - ‘hello, Eddie! You like-like boys too! Surprise!’

The issue was, as Eddie recalled that particular spring, not that Eddie also like-liked boys.

He like-liked _Richie_.

Once Eddie was, at least within the safety of his own mind, comfortable admitting he like-liked boys, he tried to look at Bill in a different light.

He thought Bill was a very handsome guy, and, personally, he thought Bill’s stammer was kind of endearing. He thought that, maybe, with this new insight on himself, he could look at Bill, and feel similarly. Bill was a much safer boy to like-like, after all - Bill was gentle, and kind, and sweet.

He didn’t get any butterflies, or rushes of blood anywhere, thinking about, or looking at Bill, though.

Richie, on the other hand, would laugh so hard at one of his _own_ mediocre jokes, that he’d throw his head back and _guffaw_, and Eddie wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from the bob of his Adam’s apple, and the way the skin around his neck, and cheeks would flush bright red.

_That _gave him butterflies, and blood rushes, and tingles, and shocks, and all kinds of sensations.

He turned his attention to Mike, and then to Stanley, trying to like them that way, but…

It was just Richie.

He really, really didn’t want it to be Richie.

Richie would use his own dirty shirt in a vain attempt to clean his ridiculous glasses, and somehow that was more sexually fucking arousing to Eddie, and his clearly damaged psycho-sexual responses than Mike, in his underwear, canon-balling into the quarry.

Stanley would take time in the mirror before an outing with the Losers, smirking confidently as he tugged on the longest curls of sandy hair at his fringe, and fucking somehow, Eddie would prefer to watch Richie’s bitten-down nails scratch lazily at the trail of hair above his bellybutton.

Ben would smile a winning smile at him - so happy to be asked to speak, so glad someone, anyone, wanted him around, and he’d absolutely shine when he got the chance to talk architecture, or history - but for some Godforsaken reason, Eddie would get distracted with the way Richie cruised on his bike, ass in the air, arms straight out in the sunlight, blue bubblegum bubble making his pink lips look even pinker -

And Beverly terrified him.

She wasn’t even really up for consideration - she matched Bill’s intensity, and simply knowing her father existed in the world was enough to make Eddie scared of even considering thinking about thinking about her.

And that was just the sexual crisis!

The romantic crisis didn’t even hit him for another year, just as he was surrendering to the evident fact that his sexuality now seemed to revolve strictly around fucking Richie Trashmouth Tozier.

Bowers had been replaced, of course, after all that terrible business with his father - social hierarchies don’t just disappear. Bullies lower on the hierarchy of power came to fill his place, and so the Losers came to fear the ridicule, and hefty punches of Pete Huffman, and his own cronies.

On one particular occasion, Richie and he had been running from Pete, and two of his friends, when Eddie had gasped ‘I need my inhaler,’ - the anxiety had been mounting, and he needed away from Huffman, somehow. At that point, with the stitch in his side, and the burning in his lungs, he would’ve almost gladly surrendered to Huffman, and allowed himself to get beat up, just to make the chase end.

He was so tired of running.

Then Richie had grabbed his arm, and tugged them into what would have been an alleyway, had the buildings been even a modicum more apart. As it was, though, they stood on each other’s toes, and without prompting, Richie reached into the side pocket of Eddie’s backpack, grabbed the inhaler he knew was inside, and brought it to Eddie’s mouth for him.

Even when Eddie reached up to take it himself, Richie kept his hands there - they both held it, and Richie soothed him, mumbling, ‘don’t worry, Eds, Huffman won’t think to look here. Take your time. It’s fine. You’re okay.’

Eddie’s arms had been pressed between them, and the hand that wasn’t holding his inhaler on top of Richie’s hand was curled against Richie’s chest, and he could feel Richie’s heart pounding, he could smell Richie’s shampoo, see the freckles on his nose, and when he’d caught his breath, it took every fibre of his being not to lean in and kiss Richie.

Not because he was hot for Richie right that second (which he was, but that was beside the point), but because he _ached_, in his _heart_, and he wanted Richie to understand, he wanted Richie to know - wanted Richie to know he fucking _lov_ -

“Nope,” Eddie says out loud, to no one, plopping his butt onto the ground, still staring at the stupid R + E carving, “Not a thing we need to say to ourself, or ever say out loud. Not a thing at all, actually, if we elect to ignore it. Nothing.”

He sighed, taking a swig from his beer bottle.

It was almost empty.

He’d been gone from his own birthday party for maybe half an hour.

The Losers had no doubt noticed by now, and Eddie knew someone was bound to find him soon.

He’s seventeen now, and he’s got a canvas bag that he keeps his medical supplies in, and his notebooks, and whatever else he needs, but he didn’t bring it, because all that had been on his mind was getting away from the party.

He’s drunk.

That’s fine, though, because he wanted to be.

It’s just - he loves that his friends get along, and they all know how Richie is - how he flirts relentlessly with anything that’s got a pulse, but he saw Richie pinching Stan’s cheek the way he usually does to Eddie, and it felt… bad.

He felt like he was on the verge of saying something, something he couldn’t take back - he wanted to shout ‘hey! You can’t pinch Stan, and tell him he’s cute! You do that to me! Those flirations can only be for me!’

He was drunk a good hour ago, though, so maybe it would have been slurred, and sounded more like, ‘Richie, don’t pinch Stan - it’s _my_ birthday - you should be telling _me_ that I’m the cute one. What about you gimme a kiss?’

Yeah, that’s more Drunk Eddie’s speed.

“This is so fucked,” Eddie whispers to the bridge.

Maybe seventeen means he can’t hide it anymore.

Maybe seventeen means he is so sexually frustrated, if he doesn’t say or do anything soon, he’ll spontaneously combust.

Maybe seventeen means letting go of Richie Tozier.

“Ugh,” he groans, running his hands through his hair, “I hate this. Why did it have to be Richie? I literally did nothing to deserve that.”

The universe does not deign to respond.

Not directly, anyway.

“Eddie?” a familiar tenor calls, “Is that my favorite pasta I see, sitting on the dirty ground?”

Eddie tries not to smile, but can’t help the corner of his mouth twitching a little.

Of course Richie would be the one to find him.

“How’d you know where I’d be?”

“I love Italian cuisine,” Richie replies, jogging through the small tunnel to reach him, “I just closed my eyes, and followed my heart.”

“I hate you.”

Richie slows as he approaches, and, it could be that Eddie is just drunk, but it seems like Richie becomes sort of cagey, once he notices where Eddie is sat in front of.

“Right… why - uh - why are you out here, Eds?”

“Did you know that this is the only place on the bridge with the initials ‘R,’ plus ‘E?’ It’s the only place,” Eddie half-explains, draining the bottom of his bottle.

“No, I’ve never taken the time to catalogue all the initials on the Kissing Bridge, which is weird, considering my insatiable quest for anonymous couplings on bridges. My dissertation is coming along nicely, not that you’ve asked recently, but I guess I could include -”

“I saw it first when I was thirteen,” Eddie interrupts, having tuned Richie out nearly as soon as he started speaking, “I thought…”

“What?”

Eddie looks up and sees Richie standing beside him; he’s staring out into the middle distance, his hands are clenching and unclenching compulsively, and when he feels Eddie’s stare, he shoves his glasses further up his nose.

His jaw twitches.

_Odd._

“What did you think? When you saw it?”

Richie sounds serious.

Eddie stands up, though it takes some effort, because he’d like to investigate why the fuck Richie is acting weird all of a sudden.

Also, he’s drunk.

He was drunk before he left the party, and he’s not gotten anymore sober, despite the nature of his thoughts.

It doesn’t seem like Richie’s drunk, though.

It sort of looks like Richie might fight him, or something.

He’s wired.

_This is so bizarre_, Eddie thinks to himself.

He stands before Richie, staring at him, trying to meet his eyes, but Richie won’t meet his, for some reason. Aggravated by that, Eddie decides to throw his own curveball into the universe.

“I thought it was you.”

Richie’s head whips toward him, and Eddie laughs a little, watching the color drain from Richie’s face.

“Jesus, Richie, calm down. I passed it while taking a long way home one day, and it looked fresh, when I first saw it. I saw our initials, and thought of you. It’s not that weird.”

“You don’t think that’s weird?”

“No, dickwad, you’ve been sewn to my fucking side since we were five, so it’s just second nature to consider you,” Eddie answers simply, “Thinking of you is like the same as breathing - I’m aware I’m doing it all the fucking time, but it’s not, like, apparent to me until someone else brings it to my attention.”

Eddie breaks the beer bottle on the ground, shocking Richie - he doesn’t know why he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s just doing whatever feels right, and right at that moment, he hates the look on Richie’s face. Hates it. So, he smashes the bottle.

He walks up to the railing again, staring at the initials, and says, “then I thought, maybe it’s Randy and Elaine, or Robbie and Ella, or Roslyn and Elliot, or Ronnie and Ethan - or literally anyone else. I’ve thought up hundreds of names, Richie. Hundreds. Cause, I come here sometimes. I stare at it for a while, and I think, for a split second, ‘maybe Richie did this, and it _is_ for me,’ but then I think of all the other names it could be, but…”

Eddie sort of forgets that Richie is standing behind him.

He stares down at the railing, and runs his fingertips over the initials reverently.

“… but, secretly, even after all the other names I think it could be, all the names it's more likely to be, I still hope it’s you.”

Richie doesn’t reply, and Eddie laughs to himself, tears building up in his eyes, “isn’t that so fucked? I come here, and I daydream about you… you wanting to put our names up on the fucking Kissing Bridge. Like… Jesus Christ. And it’s not even -”

“I did.”

It takes a beat, but Eddie turns around, blinks, and asks, “you did what?”

Richie is staring at his shoes, his fists are still clenching and unclenching, and he looks strung tight enough that if Eddie plucked a hair on his head, it would play a tune.

“I fucking carved ‘R,’ plus ‘E,’ into the fucking Kissing Bridge.”

“You did that?” Eddie asks, pointing at the initials in question.

Richie nods without looking up.

“No, you fucking didn’t,” Eddie laughs, a tear rolling down his face, “You’re just trying to make me feel -”

“What?” Richie intercepts, turning his head up, his eyes swimming, and shining, “What does it make you feel?”

Eddie freezes up, unused to Richie being so candid, so intense.

“Uh… I dunno. I…”

“Do you want it to be me, or not?” Richie interrogates, sounding angry, but Eddie really knows that means he’s scared, which also makes no sense.

“But, it wasn’t -”

“I had to say it somewhere!” Richie all but shouts, shaking from head to toe, gesturing widely with his arms, “I had to - I had to say it! Somewhere! To anyone! No one! It just fucking rattled around inside me, I had to - I had to put it somewhere!”

“It’s… it’s actually for me?”

“God_ fucking_ damn it, Eddie, _yes_,” Richie curses, striding toward him, “Do you _like_ that? Do you _want _that?”

Eddie’s shoulders round out high at his ears, and he can feel them burning.

He’d like his inhaler, but he left it at home.

Richie is standing awfully close now.

“But you - you flirt, all the time, with everyone -”

“Cause if it was just you, everyone would notice,” Richie interrupts, staring down at Eddie’s lips, “If I did it to everyone, no one could trace it back to you. And everyone thinks it’s a joke, that way. No one would know I am the way I am, or that I’m… you know… with you. That I’m… that I’m that way for you.”

“What way?” Eddie asks breathlessly, half-convinced he’s dreaming.

“Don’t make me say shit like that out loud. We’re in Derry.”

“You carved our initials into the Kissing Bridge?”

“Yeah.”

“When we were -”

“Thirteen.”

“Jesus, Richie… why?”

“Why’d you hope it was me?”

Eddie’s initial fears are evaporating quickly - Richie hasn’t said anything explicitly, but Eddie isn’t dumb. He’s just drunk.

And that makes him braver than he normally would be.

“Because I’m in love with you, and I want you to be in love with me too.”

“_Fuck_ -” Richie’s voice cracks on the one word, and he lunges forward, grabbing Eddie’s face with both his calloused hands, and he kisses Eddie, full on the mouth.

It seems like a chaotic impulse, like most other decisions Richie makes in his life.

They live in fucking Derry, Maine, where living with a single hair out of place puts an enormous, red target on one’s back, and Richie fucking Tozier, playing it by ear as he goes along, carved their initials into the fucking Kissing Bridge.

He wanted to touch Eddie - pinch him, and hug him, pat him - so he did it with everyone, annoyed literally everyone they know, just so he wouldn’t get caught singling Eddie out.

He had the mind enough to carve those initials when no one was looking, though, and he never breathed a word, until this moment.

And he had the forethought enough to put red herring around him, so no one would notice how much he touched Eddie, because he touches everyone.

He hides behind his jokes.

Eddie knows that.

His jokes are the same - he’s a conversational comedian, ready at all times to improvise, to riff off of what’s given to him, to adapt, jump onto the next moving piece.

It seems chaotic, but - not all of it is.

His kiss is firm, but he’s shaking, and his hands are gentle, but his breathing harsh; he’s an amalgamation of contradictions.

Planned, and unplanned, secretive, but transparent, honest, but deceitful, brave, and scared - Eddie kisses him back, and, on a chaotic impulse, licks Richie’s bottom lip.

The interaction of their germs is so, _so_ very worth the moan Richie makes.

The sound vibrates from Richie’s chest, up his throat, across Eddie’s lips, and Eddie chases the sound, wanting Richie to moan more, wanting to be the reason Richie moans, and he’s getting hard faster than he realizes he could.

Richie moves his hands down Eddie’s neck, over his shoulders, down his arms, and Eddie keeps thinking, _God, he’s so warm, he’s so warm, he’s strong, he feels amazing_, and he puts his hands on Richie’s neck, to encourage him.

Richie’s hands move to his waist, and he presses them together, chest to chest, hip to hip, and Eddie breaks away from their kiss to gasp.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Richie, you’re hard,” Eddie rasps, lips tingling.

Richie’s pupils are blown wide, and dark, his face is flushed, and he looks like he’s barely in control of himself.

It’s thrilling.

Eddie has never wanted anything like this before, and it makes his knees fucking weak.

“Eddie, you fuckin’ put your tongue on me again, I’ll fuckin’ cream myself, okay? I’ve been perpetually hard since sometime in the seventh grade, hard is a relative term at this point - hard doesn’t even cover it - _fuck_ \- !”

Eddie wants more of the controlled chaos that is Richie, he wants more of the thrilling, less of the talking, so he leans forward and grabs Richie’s jugular between his teeth, licking there with the broad of his tongue, hard, and then sucking on the skin even harder.

Cursing the entire while, Richie grinds against him, and Eddie grinds back, groping Richie's sides, and chest, whining in his throat, licking up toward Richie’s ear, huffing out a breath, then murmuring, “Richie, I want you to fuck me.”

Richie backs away fast as lightning, cupping the base of the very obvious, hard outline in his jeans, bent forward like he’s been punched.

He doesn’t seem able to catch his breath, but he’s making a valiant effort.

Eddie leans his weight back on his palms, against the railing of the bridge. He smiles at Richie, though Richie isn’t looking.

There’s a red bruise blossoming high on Richie’s neck where Eddie was just sucking.

He’s never felt so powerful.

“Not interested?”

“Fuck - _Christ_ \- Eddie, give me a fucking second, I literally almost just came in my pants.”

Relieved, grossed out, calm, but worked up, and a thousand other things, Eddie laughs, the last of his tears falling away, unacknowledged, “aw, I’m flattered, Richie, baby.”

“Do not start calling me Richie-baby, I am not built to withstand that sort of shit, Eddie.”

“Richie.”

“What?” Richie asks, exasperated in the way Eddie usually is with him - Eddie finally sees where the appeal is in all the teasing; he finally gets why Richie is always this way with him.

He finally sees the man in front of him, fully, not hiding behind anything - and he’s so beautiful.

“I love you.”

Richie’s body language softens, his face flushes, his eyes twinkle, and Eddie falls ever deeper.

“I love you back, Eddie. I always have.”

Eddie feels warm, from his hairline to his toes, overcome with everything good he’s ever felt in his entire life, all balled up into one, glowing in him like a bonfire.

“We should abscond to my room, when everyone leaves the party,” Eddie offers.

Before he knows what’s going on, Richie is pulling him by the arm, back toward home, telling him, “Jesus Christ, we gotta end this fuckin’ party - you don’t fuckin’ care, right? I don’t care if you do care, actually, nevermind I asked. Let’s make everyone leave - your mom still takes Xanax at night now, right? We should sneak another fuckin’ dose in - just make sure it’s a deep sleep, you know? Say you saw someone sneeze near the cake, and so everyone is mandated to leave - they’ll believe that. I’ll hide in a laundry hamper, or something. Or leave with everybody else, and then climb to your window once the coast is clear. I’ll even sing that fuckin’ Melissa Ethridge song while I do it.”

Eddie laughs, and Richie grins at him, and, truthfully, he couldn’t be happier to love Richie Tozier.

And he does.

He fucking loves him.


End file.
